GREENBELT, Md. -- In sentencing former Kenner City Councilman Nick Baroni and his son Monday to a year and a day in prison for defrauding the Navy, U.S. District Judge Alexander Williams Jr. rebuffed letters of praise for his civic-mindedness from Louisiana politicians and others from people who asked him to "throw the book" at the two defendants.

Former Kenner City Councilman Nick Baroni.

Williams said he read the 47 letters submitted to the court on behalf of the former councilman, including one from Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard that called him a "born public servant," as well as the "many" letters that took a very different point of view.

Saying he found the outpouring of sentiment about the case "strange," Williams said that as a judge from the "free state of Maryland," he was free to ignore "all the stuff going on in Louisiana" and make his own judgment based on evidence and sentencing guidelines.

Although free to ignore those guidelines, Williams decided on a sentence for Nick Baroni, 63, and his son, Keith, 39, within the recommended guidelines: 10 to 16 months.

Williams, an appointee of Democratic President Clinton, said a factor in his sentencing decision was the refusal of the pair to fully own up to what they had done wrong.

Both pleaded guilty Oct. 30 to 13 counts of mail fraud for overbilling the Navy for more than 2,200 hours of work on a 2001 computer services contract for their company, Urban Planning & Innovations.

Questions of responsibility

In addressing the judge, the senior Baroni accepted responsibility for the billing problems but said that as a new federal contractor, he was relying on the prime contractor for advice on how to collect overhead costs not specified in the contract, as well as on government officials who kept telling him to go along with the company's billing suggestions.

"What could I have done differently?" Baroni asked the judge.

Williams said it seemed that both Nick and Keith Baroni were trying to "sugarcoat" their guilty plea. A person, the judge said, shouldn't need expertise in the intricacies of government contracting to know that "you don't bill for work you haven't done."

In his view, Williams said, billing for work not done is not only dishonest but also no different than theft.

Keith Baroni told the judge that he takes 100 percent responsibility for the billing fiasco. "I am a Christian and I do make mistakes. This was one of them," Keith Baroni said, asking the judge not to keep him away from his three daughters any longer than needed.

Williams didn't buy all of the Justice Department's arguments.

He rejected a motion by the department that Nick and Keith Baroni had used "sophisticated" means to try to avoid apprehension. Such a determination by the judge would have added five months to federal sentencing guidelines, leaving open the possibility of a sentence of up to 21 months.

Good-behavior eligibility

The judge said he didn't consider one example cited by the government and one of its witnesses Monday -- that Nick Baroni discarding his usual business attire to wear jeans and tennis shoes while carrying computer equipment -- as a particularly sophisticated effort to throw off a government auditor by pretending to be a systems administrator.

The decision to add one day to the 12-month sentence also was a plus for the two defendants. A sentence of more than 12 months qualifies for up to 54 days of reduced sentence for good behavior such as volunteering to teach high school equivalency courses to other inmates.

The judge said the two can voluntarily report to prison once the federal Bureau of Prisons decides where to incarcerate them. He ordered both to pay $100 for each of the 13 counts -- $1,300 in all -- for administrative costs and said that Nick Baroni must pay $60,000 in restitution. The government said Keith Baroni had already paid restitution. Both also will be required to provide 120 days of community service.

Before the judge passed sentence, the government called three witnesses in a futile attempt to convince the judge that Nick and Keith Baroni had used sophisticated means to obscure the fraudulent billing services.

Extra money in contract

One of the witnesses, Patricia Ryan, a former executive at Team Qualtec, which held the principal Navy contract, testified that a "congressional plus up" -- extra money added by Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La, and then-U.S. Rep. David Vitter, R-Metairie, to a Pentagon spending bill -- was the reason that a subcontract was given to Urban Planning & Innovations.

Ryan said that after she determined that the contract was not working out, she went to the naval supervisor in charge of the project to say the contract with that Kenner company would have to be terminated. The Navy official, she said, wondered how he was going to "explain it to Senator Landrieu."

Landrieu's office confirmed that she helped secure an increase in the appropriation in 2001.

"The senator was working on behalf of a local Louisiana company that sought the project," Landrieu spokeswoman Stephanie Allen said.

There was no immediate comment from the office of now-U.S. Sen. David Vitter.

In his statement to the judge, Nick Baroni denied government charges that he had billed both the Navy and the Louisiana Aviation Authority for two trips to Washington in 2001.

The attorneys for the father and son had called the improper billing to which the two had admitted in their October guilty plea as "aberrations" in otherwise spotless records, and cited their involvement in community activities, including hurricane recovery, as a reason why their sentences should be limited to home confinement.

Nick Baroni served 19 years on the Kenner's City Council before resigning in 1995.

Bruce Alpert can be reached at bruce.alpert@newhouse.com or (202) 383-7861.